An inglorious year?

Approval of the Lisbon treaty by the voters of Ireland might change the future, but it does not change the past: 2009 has been a very unhappy period for the European Union.

The economic crisis has overshadowed everything. So far, this has been a year of job losses and ever-worsening public finances.

The politics of 2009 has been no better than the economics – arguably worse. The government of the Czech Republic, which held the presidency of the Council of Ministers at the time, collapsed and was replaced by a caretaker regime.

The European Parliament, like the Czech presidency, also went into a catatonic trance, though the cause was more predictable: the end of the five-year mandate, the campaigning for June’s elections. The result was depressingly familiar: another new record low for voter turn-out at 43%.

Over at the European Commission, things were not much better. Although all three EU institutions had a flurry of activity to get certain legislative deals done before the European Parliament elections – on energy, on climate change, on telecoms regulation – thereafter the Commission was doing a passable imitation of paralysis. José Manuel Barroso’s quest for reappointment as Commission president was almost as drawn out as Poland’s ratification of the Lisbon treaty. In the meantime, Barroso was always vulnerable to accusations that he was afraid of committing the Commission to anything that might offend those who would decide on whether to give him five more years. The Commission as a whole was enervated by the reappointment campaign.

The sense of hiatus was heightened by the distraction of an election in Germany, which contaminated the political climate for months in advance. The criticism from the constitutional court in Germany of the European Parliament was a further blow to the self-esteem of the EU.

France, meanwhile, was driving a coach and horses (or at least a Peugeot-Citroën car) through the principles of the single market and laying waste the Stability and Growth Pact. (It was not alone in breaching the EU’s rules on public finances, but the relish with which it has done so was verging on vandalism.) President Nicolas Sarkozy missed few chances to put the boot in to what he termed the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.

Talk of the Franco-German relationship being the engine of the EU was reserved for the rhetoric of the two countries’ bilateral summits. In Brussels, the more common perception was that in 2009, the motor was running on dodgy fuel and the pistons weren’t firing properly.

Things were not much better further south. The Mediterranean has been a field of woes for the EU in 2009. The border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia blighted the already struggling efforts towards further enlargement of the EU. The hopes ignited in 2008 that the disputes over Cyprus might be resolved have not been realised, though the talks should not be written off. Malta and Italy have not covered themselves – or the EU – in glory in their handling of migration across the Mediterranean. Indeed, Italy’s treatment of immigrants and Roma has attracted international criticism and tested the EU’s claims to stand up for human rights.

It is hard to think of any foreign policy initiatives that have redeemed this record. The year began with the EU standing helplessly by, as Israel used disproportionate force in Gaza. In the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Iran, the EU has been of doubtful relevance. Perhaps the EU could claim to have had some influence in resolving Moldova’s crisis, but that is not much of a claim.

It is against this background, that I, as editor of European Voice since mid-July, had to set the tradition of EV Awards. Since 2001, a ceremony has been held towards the end of each year at which we announce our Europeans of the Year. Working from a shortlist drawn up by a panel of experts, readers vote as to who has most influenced the EU agenda.

This year there will be no EV Awards ceremony. Partly, that is because the economic climate is inhospitable – those who sponsored the event in the past have, understandably, less appetite for black-tie gala dinners. Partly, it is because the EU – and European Voice – has little to celebrate from 2009. It has been hard for anyone to influence events in a year that was at the mercy of the economic downturn and suffered countless political disruptions. The choice was to deny reality and to pretend that the year has been better than it really was, or to miss a turn and preserve the value of the EV Awards.

I am happy nonetheless to receive readers’ views as to who should have been nominated and shall be interested to hear from those who see 2009 differently. For many, the fortunes of the EU in 2009 will be judged by what happens to the Lisbon treaty (still in the balance) and the outcome of the climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen (in December). Judged by what has happened so far, 2009 is a year that the EU would rather forget. But the EU will recover from this unhappy 12 months. The recovery – and those who assisted in it – will be recognised in the 2010 edition of EV Awards.